No, taxes shouldn’t be a “fairness” issue

posted at 7:00 pm on January 29, 2012 by J.E. Dyer

What are we, six years old? Taxes should pay for the costs of government. That’s what we have taxes for.

The proper purpose of taxes is not to establish a condition of “fairness.” It’s to pay for government: a legislature, executive, military, police, firefighting, courts, schools. But for 100 years now, the percentage-based income tax has been shifting public dialogue on taxes steadily away from their proper purpose, and toward increasingly juvenile arguments over “fairness,” as if the tax code is like Mom, telling Makayla to share the toys and be patient because Brendan is little.

If we let taxation be about “fairness,” rather than paying for the cost of government, the two big problems we have are defining “fairness,” and defining the role of government in promoting it. Those questions will never be settled to the satisfaction of all.

It might seem that the first question – “what is fair?” – is the more contentious one. We discuss it incessantly, after all. But the more fundamental question is actually what government should be doing about fairness. The freighted nature of our discussions about fairness is largely relieved if we assign a limited, utilitarian role to government. It doesn’t much matter what other people think is “fair,” in a lengthy list of situations, if they can’t harness the power of the armed state to enforce it on their fellow men.

Thus, I reject the whole idea that government needs to keep an eye on the citizens’ incomes, and worry about “fairness” as if the numbers are a meaningful indicator of it. For much of American history, no government at any level actually knew how much income individual citizens had. That was not a problem. It didn’t need correction. We could do away with virtually our entire tax code, if we did away with the modern idea that government needs to know what our incomes are.

We would also do away with the various ugly arguments that pit citizen against citizen in a do-loop of unrequitable resentments. No, childless people shouldn’t have to pay proportionally more in taxes than people with children do. No, married people with two incomes should not have to pay a “marriage penalty” in their tax bill. Neither demographic is battening on the other with its life choices. But however we feel about that issue, we could avoid the argument altogether, if the tax code didn’t creep around after us inquiring into our incomes and household arrangements.

Obviously, we should all obey the law as it exists today; the point here is that we once handled these issues in a way less susceptible to demagoguery, government interventionism, and social conflict – and we could do so again. The way to discuss the tax code is not in terms of “fairness,” as if the government should be charged with using taxation to establish conditions according to a “fairness” index, but in terms of what needs paying for and how we’re going to collect revenue for that purpose.

In our pre-16th Amendment days, the federal government collected taxes on imports, liquor, and cigarettes. It also collected, and continues to collect, fees for various kinds of concessions, such as mining, drilling for oil and gas, cutting timber, fishing, and so forth. State and local governments collected taxes primarily on real property. With the automation of market transactions, sales taxes have become a widespread method of collecting revenue for state and local governments.

These methods of tax collection can be pursued without knowing what anyone’s income is or what his household arrangements are. The first question about government knowing these things is why it needs to at all. Taxes can be collected in different ways; it is not as though government can only tax us effectively if it knows all our financial, family, and household business. Many things that are crimes today are crimes only because government now insists on having this information about us.

I consider it a very low-payoff proposition for conservatives to continue to debate tax “fairness” as if we are in a closed-loop system with our tax code, and no alternative is imaginable. The mechanism of automated payroll withholding has made percentage-based income taxation convenient, but not more so than automated sales taxes, or property taxes escrowed with mortgage payments. There are alternatives.

The real question is whether our citizenry has the maturity and largeness of mind to accept the idea of government that is not chartered to be our Mom, knowing all our business and ordering us to share the toys. Such a government would have, for starters, a lot less to do. It would cost us less, and be less exploitable by demagogues and special interests. That would be OK with me – I can go the rest of my life without knowing what Bill Gates’ income is, or Warren Buffett’s, or Warren Buffett’s secretary’s.

Blowback

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All this ‘fairness’ rhetoric is a big lie. We know Obama wants all of us to kick in more, and not just the rich. A as a matter of politics, though, he would prefer to do it to the middle class and poor indirectly through a carbon or value added tax.

Progressives have always believed that they know what to do with our money better than we do and that hasn’t changed.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.

Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

‘Fairness’ in the eyes of Liberal means having equality of achievement without having the equality of hard work, effort and risk. Good fortune is only handed to those that win the lottery, the rest of us have to work for it.

People see the flat tax as fair. And even if they don’t, they have a hard time crying about unfairness without looking like a bunch of class envy commies. The current conundrum system with all its moving parts is susceptible to all kinds of little unbalanced dilemmas where you can look around and inflame the people over unfairness, even when those “unfair” people would be paying less with a flat tax.

The flat tax is still probably unfair. Why should Warren Buffett have to pay a nickel more than any other American? I think he should pay the same amount of taxes as the guy who mows his lawn. Not percent, the same amount of dollars. Nor should he get any more favors than the janitor.

But no RINO outfit like The Weekly Standard would endorse abolishing the Fed, because the Fed inflates the money supply just enough the keep the value of the houses owned by the staff of The Weekly Standard relatively flat. The Fed also supports the stock market, and of course The Weekly Standard’s staff loves their stocks, too.

The real question is whether our citizenry has the maturity and largeness of mind to accept the idea of government that is not chartered to be our Mom, knowing all our business and ordering us to share the toys.

Obviously the people are nowhere near this. As I said on the other thread…Rs need to do some deep thinking on how to educate people on whats wrong with socialism.

I don’t think the R party is up to that right now. (Gigot said as much on fox news sunday). So we need to look toward 16…this election is probably not salvageable. Rs need a long view…that is what the left has always excelled at.

Rs thought that Reagan won the argument and that the Communists were defeated, and now they could just be popular guys that ban light bulbs and stuff. Silly people…sad really

because the Fed inflates the money supply just enough the keep the value of the houses owned by the staff of The Weekly Standard relatively flat. The Fed also supports the stock market, and of course The Weekly Standard’s staff loves their stocks, too.

Emperor Norton on January 29, 2012 at 7:23 PM

Smells like a conspiracy theory or just plain envy. Do you define ‘fairness’ through the actions of the federal reserve? This is why it shouldn’t be up to anyone to determine what’s ‘fair.’ Everyone has their own ideas about that, some of them half-baked.

Good post. Can’t add to what has already been said. Sounds like this is a topic upon which all conservatives are in agreement and would be willing to openly debate a reasonable solution to the monster of a tax law that has been allowed to come into existence.

I’m surprised that the Prof got away with it. I once taught an AP Chem class that was populated by about 50% liberal students and 50% conservative students. I offered to do the same thing. Tax the rich(high achieving students) and give to the poor (lesser achieving students). The liberal students squealed like a stuck pig and didn’t want any part of it. It wasn’t fair and all that. When I pointed out that the same thing held true about taxes their response was that it was just money and the rich had more than enough to share. They never got the hypocrisy of that statement

Do you really see every employee shareholder gain at the Weekly Standard or any stock gain for that matter as something that was ‘stolen’ or unjustly earned because of the actions of the Federal Reserve? Those are Capital Gains, which is really what Obama is getting at with Buffet’s secretary.

If Obama’s going to make taxes and fairness his main issue during the campaign then we might as well start listing the taxes we all pay.

We can show the Democrats and independents, the endless labyrinth taxes are and how they’re incredibly unfair for everyone and incredibly unfair times ten for the people who shoulder the responsibility of employing others.
And regulations and paperwork to make the strongest cry.

Want to make war on an unfair meme?

I say let them have as much unfair war as they want, and a little more.

It’s about time the Republicans latched on to this argument. Obama has no clue what capitalism is and he has no clue what to do about the economy and taxes. His idea of fairness is rich folk paying 30% in taxes, but if that’s not enough (which it’s not) then he has no clue what to do next.

My problem is that Romney isn’t much better. Romney is McCain with more money and no Sarah Palin so, if that’s what you want, I guess we’ll be stuck with him.

I know what fairness is. Fairness is the lady in front of me at the convenience store paying for chips and sodas for her and her brood with her WIC card and then buying $30 dollars worth of lottery tickets with cash.

Now that I’ve figured that out, I’m no longer angry. Makes perfect sense to me.

By the way, Corporal Tunnel, you’re way too glib. Read the other people’s posts first, think a while, and then comment. Try it.

You sound a lot like the teenage Mormon Lord Romney supporters who have been infesting Hot Air.

Emperor Norton on January 29, 2012 at 7:38 PM

No, I’m just trying to follow your logic. You said that the Weekly Standard wouldn’t write articles against the Fed because of their stock (capital) gains. What are you basing this on? A gut feeling? Envy?

And you seemed to imply that ‘fairness’ had something to do with that.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..

The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.

Great analogy, but unlikely to have actually happened-the students would have complained to administration who would have stopped the experiment.

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

Wethal on January 29, 2012 at 7:12 PM

“Tax the rich, feed the poor, til there are no rich no more.” I’d Love to Change the World recorded by Ten Years After sometime in the 60′s if I recall correctly

Excellent. My daughter did a similar thing with her 5th grade students. Only she used play money and divided the group into workers and non workers. Took half the money from the workers and gave it to the non workers. In an inner city school. Kids didn’t like it. In a public school, that’s practically subversive. We laugh about it every year.

Perhaps everyne should pay say 10% of their income, that sounds fair to me. Making some people pay more than others isn’t “fair” at all.

Ellis on January 29, 2012 at 7:12 PM

If we want to be fair, let’s scrap the federal income tax, which only 53% pay, and replace it with a 10% national sales tax. That way everyone pays (based on consumption) including people who can afford $185 Air Jordans even though their families are “too poor” to pay taxes.

“Fairness” in the progressive/liberal mindset is nothing less than being able to acquire what somebody else has without the cost in labor, sweat, risk and capital to obtain it.

The Nanny State (Gubmint as Santa Claus) will continue unless the real adults in the room say enough is enough and the “fairness” Nazis are made to suck it up and get the better things in life the same way good, decent, hard-working entrepreneurs and risk takers and productive citizens have been doing for centuries. Earn it.

I am well beyond tired of being required to finance nearly half of the population who pay no local, state or federal income taxes whatsoever yet get all sorts of rebate checks every season because some idiot (bunch of idiots) decided that it was more “fair.”

If we want to be fair, let’s scrap the federal income tax, which only 53% pay, and replace it with a 10% national sales tax. That way everyone pays (based on consumption) including people who can afford $185 Air Jordans even though their families are “too poor” to pay taxes.

If buffet really believed in that he does not pay enough taxes, he can set a goal like Andrew Carnegie did and give all his money away. Instead he has set up tax shelter trusts as monuments to him self. He is every bit as corrupt as he Chicago thug buddy, using his access to loot the treasury with crony capitalism.

This is quite possibly the most ironic headline in the history of this site, as any liberal would absolutely agree with it but for the opposite reason. I see constant whining on this site about the poor not paying income taxes and “Getting a free ride”, which is asinine. Not only do even marginally higher taxes effect them in a way it doesn’t the rich, it also doesn’t produce a noteworthy amount of revenue. Yet any time anyone suggests raising taxes only on the wealthy we hear it decried as class warfare when in reality it’s just politicians being practical: Why raise taxes on the poor out of a false sense of fairness? The goal of raising taxes is to increase revenue, nothing more.

This article is the most laughable example of projecting your own faults on your opponents I’ve seen in a while.

Why raise taxes on the poor out of a false sense of fairness? The goal of raising taxes is to increase revenue, nothing more.

Typhonsentra on January 29, 2012 at 8:56 PM

I’ll tell you what, I’m good with that as long as those who aren’t paying taxes refrain from calling for tax increases on the rich, the 1%’ers, the wealthy, those who have benefited from life’s lottery, or whatever the current phrase is for people who have worked to excel and have done so. In addition, they should stop voting for those who have pledged to provide more “benefits”, again, using money taken from those who pay taxes and given to those who don’t.

The purpose of having those on the lower income scale pay something is to make sure that they understand that those government “benefits” don’t just materialize out of thin air but come because money has been taken from someone to be given to somebody else. As your hero BHO said, “Everyone needs to have some skin in the game”

Instead of using the media’s narrative driven discussion. Why doesn’t some investigative reporter put together just how much Buffett’s cozy relationship with the current President has benefited him.

Dr Evil on January 29, 2012 at 8:43 PM

And also how the higher taxes he is advocating helps him relative to others. We know big business loves big expensive regulations because it keeps the little guy out of the picture. You aren’t going to start a car company out of your garage anymore when billions of dollars in safety testing is required, etc. His stock is priced at thousands of dollars a share and maybe it’s not susceptible to the damage that other stocks would suffer if he got his way of driving semi-rich out of the market, thereby making these companies ripe for the Berkshire Hathaway pickings.

I am an accountant and do tax work part time during tax season.
You know what gets me and what is not fair is during the month of January until mid February I get to do people’s taxes that do not pay taxes and get a big refund. How fair is this?
Welfare not taxable
WIC not taxable
State insurance not taxable
I could go on and on but in the end people are getting free money all year, pay no taxes and walk out with a hefty refund check, it is repulsive.
Oh but they are poor, right
If you added all they get in state aide plus their min income they make a good salary and should be paying taxes on it.

The proper purpose of taxes is not to establish a condition of “fairness.” It’s to pay for government: a legislature, executive, military, police, firefighting, courts, schools.

Bzzzzzzzzz. Wrong. You added one too many things to that list. Assuming we’re talking the federal level, there is no constitutional mandate to pay for schools. That is an issue that must be handled at the local/state level. The federal government, through the US Department of Education has added nothing to education in the US since it’s inception but cost. And taken away quality at every turn.

If we let taxation be about “fairness,” rather than paying for the cost of government, the two big problems we have are defining “fairness,” and defining the role of government in promoting it. Those questions will never be settled to the satisfaction of all.

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Fairness is one parameter to use when deciding who should be paying taxes and how much they should pay. We need to be as fair as possible when we determine how taxes are paid.

What are we, six years old? Taxes should pay for the costs of government. That’s what we have taxes for.

Succinct and spot on. I am always incredulous when anyone says we need more taxes without once mentioning cutting government/spending. We have crumbling infrastructure? Maybe we should commission a blue ribbon panel to see who is misappropriating the vast gas tax/toll revenue? Just down the road from me, the GW bridge collects approximately $1 million PER DAY! That’s over $350 million per year and I still have to make like Alberto Tomba avoiding potholes heading to work? With sales, excise, real estate, death, and other taxes we pay upwards of 50% to Big Bro government and still some morons demand more. We may be doomed due to the political illiteracy of the populous.

GarandFan, you are on point! Unfortunately, that’s not “fair” when you view the world through the lens of hypocrisy, as liberals do. In their reality, fair is what they say it is, wrong is what they say it is and doggone it, you can even feel good about yourself as a limousine liberal because we are talking about fair not their money!

Ok. It has come to my attention, by reading the “Slate” (that’s a stone…right) article “no pets for you” that certain slightly deranged (and thus probably liberal) individuals have very high standards (I did not read the whole article) before they allow any abandonned animal to be adopted. They will, in fact, adopt the animal themselves.

Seems to me a perfect way to tie up their disposable income. (better fluffy than to Obozo)

Ladies and Gentlemen I submit to you that every elected Representative not voted into office in the last election be voted out of office when they come up for a vote again. The only people in Washington DC NOT responsible for the condition of the United States finances are those who have been there for this term only, every other person, Cabinet Member, Senator, Representative, Department head, to include the Generals running the Military. Office Managers all the way down to the local Agricultural Office have their pay reduced by 20% and reduced to the job below their present position, or relieved of duty and sent to the unemployment office. These are the people who have spent money as though there was an unlimited supply. This situation is proof positive of the “Peter Principle”. It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, it states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence”, meaning that employees tend to be promoted until they reach a position in which they cannot work competently. They are never removed, meaning that the Government is being run by a bunch of incompetent morons. But then we were aware of that already, we just did not know what to do about it.

Thank you for making a point of this–and for pointing it out. Taxation in this country is almost as out of control as the overspending. In case anyone has forgotten, too much taxation by a war-mongering king lead to this little thing called a revolution in the American colonies.

The problem is that our attention gets diverted onto petty issues that have nothing to do with the real issue. It is none of the government’s business what we do with our money and this government acts like they’re entitled to it–exactly one of the things the Constitution was written as it was to prevent.

Taxation in this country has become the easiest way for politicians to pander to special interests for votes…that is what it is and that is what they want it to stay…
Like a vampire, you’d have to drive a silver stake through the heart of every politician not in the Tea Party caucus to get them to change it…